ASK DR. SCHUND

Dr. Schund, mine is a small deeply religious country wishing to
spread God's love by destroying all profane competitors; money is
no object.

Low Earth Orbit is 100 to 1240 miles altitude above most of the
atmosphere and below the inner Van Allen radiation belt. Gas
drag is important to 350 miles altitude (International Space
Station Freedom FUBAR Space Hole One Alpha orbits at 173 to 286
miles altitude). Orbital speeds are near 5 miles/second for a 90
minute orbital period. Muzzle velocity of an M16 rifle is 0.606
miles/sec. The fastest rifle bullet is the 5 mm (.20 caliber) SMc
at 0.909 miles/sec (30 grain, 1.9 gram molybdenum disulfide-plated
Berger bullet from a 28 inch Pac-Nor barrel. Serious hurt is
orbital rather than belched from a gun's muzzle.

As of 2009 the US lofted about 1070 satellites, Russia 1420, the
rest of the world summed fewer than 600. Disappear them to end
long distance communications and orbital telemetries including
weather, national security, and GPS. God's virtuous and
abstinent dominion of poverty, hunger, disease, filth, death, and
silk-clad priests with whips will resurrect upon a level
conventional weapons playing field. US military operations
involving navigation or targeting are inert absent GPS.

Heating the 0.432 gram pellet to 2700 C requires 180 calories.
Vaporizing it requires 28 calories more for a total of 208
calories. Impact energy at 4 miles/second is 2138 calories.
Boom.

Project Bumwipe launches a five tonne payload of quarter-inch
Carborundum grit, 11.6 million pellets, into polar orbit. The
package is then exploded to release its payload in a spreading
cloud, wiping the sky clean of polar and equatorial orbits.

Project Shitstorm sends a tonne of 0.25" diameter Carborundum
grit (2.3 million pellets) around the moon, returned in
counterorbit, and vectored. The package is then exploded to
release the shitstorm, scrubbing the sky of satellites at
relative 8 miles/second geosynchrous orbit scrub with impact
energy of 26,000 ft-lbs/pellet. Low Earth orbit (and ISS FUBAR)
has relative 10 miles/sec impact speed of 41,000 ft-lbs/pellet.

Cobalt-cemented tungsten carbide has density 17.5 g/cm3.
That would be an ISS FUBAR Project Shitstorm scrub of 224,000
ft-lbs/pellet with 426,000 pellets/tonne. Tungsten carbide has Mohs
hardness 8.5 and boils at 6000 C (10,800 F). The sun's surface
radiates at 5500 C. Implementation is within the budget of most
countries given third party booster service and a "near-moon
sampling probe" to express national pride.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wholly habitable within five years of
their atomic bombings. Fallout radioactivity decreases by a
factor of ten for each factor of seven in time. If initial
radiation is an absurd lethal dose/minute (about 400 rem), one
year later it is five million times smaller, a lethal dose/9.5
years. Five years later it is a lethal dose/57 years if
sustained rather than further decayed. Project Shitstorm would
persist for decades in low Earth orbit, for centuries in
geosynchronous orbit.

What could First World nation state crimps do if shanghaied
skies were returned to their rightful owners in a virtuous spasm
of compassion, diversity, and orbital abrasive pellets? Nothing.
Any attempt to snare remaining pellets is silly. They are
invisible to radar. They are ridiculously dilute. Any attempt
to intercept them fragments the catcher, exacerbating the
problem. (One hopes Congress does not get all hot and bothered!
An advocate makes virtue of failure. The worse the cure the
better the treatment, and the more that is required.)

When a body-armored land warrior multitasking Army of One puzzles
over a super-twist nematic full color high resolution stereoptic
liquid crystal display... and gets her head bashed in by an
illiterate native with a wooden club... who has the better
weapon?